You Make Me Cry
As Peter walked along, Miles froze, stunned to a stop mid-stride. He felt winded, like he'd been punched. The young buck, skinny and short for both his age and his race, stood dead still and stared at his boyfriend's back, like he suddenly wasn't sure whether what he saw was real. Pete, a white rabbit of feminine build (and about average height, which put him above the deer by a few inches), turned around a moment later when he realized his companion had stopped.
"What?" the deer asked. It was the only thing that came to mind. His brain felt like it had stopped, too, or at least drastically slowed.
"Oh, I said my family and I are moving," he said, slightly louder, as though he really believed the deer simply hadn't heard him. "We should probably see other people, considering that we're going far."
The deer stood, totally still, stunned; the eponymous "deer in the lights". He thought to ask, next, "why", but the rabbit had already explained. It seemed so neat, when his boyfriend Pete said it. His boyfriend.... It was so much more complicated when Miles thought about it. Betrayal? Failure? These and so many other questions came to mind to haunt him. None of them were good; none really gave a shot at the answers he wanted. He wasn't sure there was an answer.
"Wh... I..." the deer stammered slowly, only just starting to catch up, and with that, to panic. "Did I do something wrong?"
The bunny stared at him with wide, confused eyes. He seemed genuinely surprised at Miles' reaction.
"What do you mean, 'did you do something?'" the rabbit asked, innocently. "My dad got a better job, but it's two states over. It's got nothing to do with you."
Miles stood shocked, his brain, before stopped, now racing with doubts, guesses, questions, images, recriminations. Most of all, he was shocked by his boyfriend's utter lack of compassion and empathy here; they'd been together for almost half a year, now. They'd been close. Happy.
"Don't... Don't you want to stay here?" he asked, his voice as small as he felt. "Wi... With me?" he added, with a forlorn hope in his voice that would have been heartbreaking to anyone who was listening for the speaker's emotion. Pete was not.
"I can't," he said, slowly, like someone trying to explain a simple idea to a slow child. "My dad's already taken the job. And it'll bring more money in for my family..." The bunny continued to regard Miles' face, genuinely confused at what he saw there. It looked so strangely like... hurt. Even as he watched, tears welled up in the deer's large eyes, until they spilled over, rolling down either cheek and matting the fur there. Again and again, he stammered the beginnings of statements and questions that never really formed all the way. He didn't know what to say. He didn't know if there was anything to say. Peter looked like he was becoming uncomfortable, the way a person will when they are encountered by violent emotion in those they don't really care about.
"Right," he said, awkwardly. "I'd best be getting back home." He took a few steps, before turning and adding halfheartedly, "You, uh, take care of yourself."
Miles watched him go. It was like watching a vital, essential piece of him being torn away. He stumbled home in a sort of trance, going to his room, drawing all the curtains and extinguishing all his lights, and lying half-naked in a little nest of linens on his bed. He did nothing but cry, sleep and eat bowls of ice cream and cereal for three days.